


Cruel Intentions

by Face_of_Poe



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Absent Parents, Abusive Relationships, All the swearing, Alternate Universe - Cruel Intentions, Alternate Universe - High School, Asexual Character, Asexual Steve Rogers, Bisexual Bucky Barnes, Bisexual Character, Bored rich teenagers, Brief discussion of past military combat death, Bucky will sleep with anyone, Daddy Issues, Derogatory Language, Dubious Consent, Dubious Morality, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, F/M, Gen, If you've seen Cruel Intentions you can pretty much guess at the fucked up shit happening up in here, Jokes about incest, Lots of talk about incest, M/M, Nobody Dies, Pseudo-Incest, Revenge, Revenge Sex, Sexual Coercion, Sexual Content, Small Steve Rogers, Swearing, all the sex
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-09-22
Updated: 2016-10-15
Packaged: 2018-08-16 17:03:24
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 18,426
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8110417
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Face_of_Poe/pseuds/Face_of_Poe
Summary: After being dumped at the urging of his girlfriend's cousin Peggy, Brock Rumlow makes a wager with his promiscuous stepbrother James. 
The challenge: Seduce Peggy's boyfriend Steve, and ruin their relationship. 
The catch: Steve is the headmaster's new stepson - and he's just come out as asexual. 
The reward: James gets the thing he's been craving most since his mother remarried - his stepbrother Brock.
---OR---
The Cruel Intentions AU nobody asked for.





	1. The Wager

**Author's Note:**

> Welcome to my Cruel Intentions AU, cleverly titled - Cruel Intentions. First things first - there's a lot of fucked up shit going on in here. Cruel Intentions is a fucked up movie (and also probably older than a lot of people here which, yikes; I won't necessarily say go watch it if you haven't seen it, but it is available to stream on Netflix right now, so). And in itself is an AU I suppose, so, AU within an AU? AUception?  
> Anyway. If there are any tags/warnings you suggest, please PLEASE let me know. The whole premise is focused around trying to seduce an asexual character so Bucky can get in his stepbrother's pants so, be wary of any potential concerns with reading. 
> 
> Keeping with the spirit of its inspiration, there's not a lot of adult presence, so it seemed kind of silly to tag those relationships. But Winifred Barnes is married to Brock's father, and Sarah Rogers is married to Alexander Pierce. Which is just weird to type. True to form though, both Steve and Bucky are originally Brooklyn boys, though they did not know one another prior to the events of this story.
> 
> I'm skipping the 'underage' warning - it's a high school AU, all pertinent characters are incoming seniors, assume they're all 18 if you like, ages are never specified.
> 
> Lastly - I'm just going to spoil this right up front because this might be a deal breaker for some readers - the ending will diverge from the movie, in that no one will be dying in this story.

**The Wager**

The heavy wooden door to Bucky’s oversized yet somehow stuffy bedroom swung open with a dull groan. He didn’t even bother to look up from his journal, where he was putting the finishing touches on a rough pencil sketch; there was only one person who never knocked.

“What can I do for you, dear brother?” he murmured, barely audible over stomping footsteps.

“Stupid fucking… goddamn piece of motherfucking…”

Bucky sighed. “Brock,” he drawled, lifting his pencil in perfect time when his stepbrother’s collapse onto the bed, and then resuming the shading, “You’ve been reduced to spontaneous outbursts of profanity. Trouble in paradise?”

“Fuck women.”

“Often as they’ll let me.”

“I’m serious.”

“So am I.”

A looming shape blocked out his light and cast a shadow over the drawing. Bucky snapped the notebook shut and glared up at Brock’s simultaneously eager yet derisive gaze. “That’s private." 

“A new conquest? You’re such a slut, Barnes,” Brock declared delightedly. “Seriously though, why do you even bother with these stuck-up bitches? You go for any and everything – stick to guys.”

“Hm,” he hummed thoughtfully. “Breasts, though.” Brock considered that a moment, then sighed and shrugged to concede the point. “Sharon dump you?”

“Yeah.”

“Again? Good for her.”

His stepbrother growled low in his throat. “Fuck you.” 

“Lemme find a time to pencil you in, whoring-about is such busy work.”

He bit his lip and watched Brock’s eyes fix briefly on his mouth before drifting up to meet his, his own lips curling in a cruel grin. “You wish, James.”

“I’ve been called a great many things, most of them by you, but _coy_ has certainly never been one of them,” he calmly agreed. “I’d make an excellent rebound.”

“You sure as fuck wouldn’t get clingy and emotional,” Brock grinned. “But sorry – just because I hate all women right now doesn’t suddenly make me want to start fucking dudes.”

“Just lie back and think of England, I’ll do all the work.” Bucky tossed his journal on the night stand and crawled over to hover above Brock’s pouting face. “Besides,” he murmured, leaning in to whisper low and hot against his ear, “just think about the coronary it would give your father and my mother if they ever found out.”

Brock surged upward and wrestled Bucky around and down on the bed. Bucky went easy, eyes dancing with teasing mischief and tongue playing across his lower lip. “ _You_ ,” Brock declared, “were an unfortunate rider that my father agreed to put up with because your money-grubbing mother was desperate and hot, and he only agreed at that because he’s got a big enough house to barely notice you exist and enough money to make himself forget when he does.” 

With a wink, Bucky leaned up and nipped at his jaw. “Tell me something I don’t know.”

Brock released his grip on his shoulders and sat up, running a hand through uncharacteristically messy hair that looked like he’d already spent the morning mussing it in frustration. “I didn’t see this coming with Sharon,” he confessed, and then added snidely, “ _This_ time, anyway. I thought we were doing better.”

“Jesus fucking Christ, does Brock Rumlow have _feelings_ somewhere buried in that cold, dead heart?”

“She changed her mind abruptly, and I want to know who made that happen.”

Mulling that over, Bucky took a minute to tuck his journal in his desk and lock the drawer. “You think she’s set her sights on someone else?" 

“Can’t think of _who_.”

“I dunno,” Bucky waggled his eyebrows, “she’s been spending a lot of time with the new kid, hasn’t she? Getting him all orientated before the school year. Banning? Brenner?”

“What, Bruce fucking Banner?” Brock scoffed. “Kid’s a total dweeb.”

“A dweeb with some severe anger management issues, if the rumors are to be believed.” Brock blinked. “Dude, he’s transferring to SHIELD because he got _expelled_ from his last school. Sent a couple of kids to the hospital.”

“Where the fuck did you hear that?”

Bucky shrugged. “Nat.”

To his credit, Brock looked much more inclined to believe it, at that. “That girl scares me.”

“All the best ones should.” Bucky clapped his stepbrother’s shoulder, and then swung his jacket off the back of his desk chair and pulled it on. “I wish you all the best in this brief bout of self-reflective melancholy, and have every confidence that you will soon be back to your usual misogynistic dickhead self.”

“You’re calling _me_ a misogynist? Really?”

“I objectify men and women equally, thank you,” Bucky bristled. “And on that note – gotta run, I have a date.”

“Yeah? Who with?”

“Maximoff.”

Brock started to say something, paused, and frowned. “Which one?”

Bucky grinned, winked, and slipped out the door.

 

X---X

“You have,” Bucky murmured softly as he worked his way from ankle to knee with sucking, open-mouthed kisses, “the most,” his fingers trailed higher, slipping under a sheet that was failing miserably at covering the naked body beneath, “amazing legs.”

Wanda laughed and kicked out lightly, digging her toes into his naked side and tickling his ribs before withdrawing and tucking her leg under the sheet, away from his searching mouth and hands. “You can stop with the flattery, James, you already got me into bed." 

“Mm,” he crawled up the length of her body and leaned in for a slow kiss. “Not flattery if it’s true. Those school uniforms are a goddamn travesty against the perfection that is your body.”

With another soft chuckle, Wanda sprawled back against the pillows, the picture of lazy, sated contentment. “That’s the thing about you, James.”

“What?”

“I know what an operator you are, but at least you’re to the point.”

He grinned lasciviously. “What’s the point?”

“That you want to fuck me, but you don’t beat around the bush with pretending to care about my native country and going on about how _sexy_ my accent is.”

“Hm, and how are things back in Slovakia?” Wanda sighed heavily. “Wait, hold on, I know this. Serbia? Slovenia? Somalia?”

“One of those things is not like the others.”

“Sao Tome and Principe? Saint Vincent and the Grenadines?”

She punched his arm. “ _Stop it_ , oh my _God_.”

He dove back in for another kiss, gripped her hips firmly through the silken sheets, and grinned as she squealed against him when he rolled them over. The sheet tangled between them and slipped down off her bare shoulders. Bucky slipped one hand underneath it and traced his fingers slowly up towards the apex of her thighs, reaching up with his other hand to brush his thumb teasingly across a taut nipple.

“Mm,” it didn’t take her long to get with that program, “don’t start something you don’t intend to finish.”

“’Fraid I’m not ready to go again _quite_ yet,” he craned his neck up and mouthed his way from her jaw, down her neck and across one shoulder, before venturing lower and giving the other breast its due attention, “but I have _every_ intention of seeing _you_ finish.”

“Good man,” she gasped, grinding down on his hand.

His inevitable cocky response was cut short by the sound of the apartment door opening and closing. Wanda either didn’t hear or didn’t care, at least not until Bucky froze and left her wanting. “It’s just Pietro.” She rocked her hips impatiently against him. “I told you, my parents left." 

“I thought your brother was going to Sokovia with them?”

“He was, but – _James_ ,” she smacked his shoulder, “you are such a little shit.”

“I like winding you up,” he confessed.

“I’m shocked, truly,” she deadpanned. “Now I think you – what are you…?”

He dumped her unceremoniously on her back and climbed off the bed, trying to remember which direction he’d tossed his pants. “I think I should go.”

“Pietro is under no illusions about my innocence, I promise you.” He ignored her and shimmied into his tight jeans, casting about now for his shirt. “ _James_ , this is stupid, why don’t you just - ?” She cut off with an indignant yelp, pulling the sheet up to her chin as the bedroom door cracked open.

“Sis, you in? I texted you an hour ago but _ahhhh_ nevermind, okay, _Christ,_ put a sign on the door or something…”

He’d almost gone, and Bucky was _this_ close to being home free, before Pietro’s horror at walking in on his twin sister _in flagrante delicto_ was outweighed by his shock at registering just _who_ was in her bedroom with her.

“Ah ha,” he took a step into the room, eyeing Bucky up and down as he stood there in front of the dresser, pants undone, shirt in hand. “Well then.”

“ _Pietro_.”

“So, ah,” Bucky shuffled his feet, “You didn’t go to Europe.”

“ _No_ , I didn’t.”

He pursed his lips. “I have to be honest, I’m feeling a bit taken-advantage-of, I put a _lot_ into making sure your last night in New York was one to remember.” Behind him, Wanda made a choked-off sound of shock; he couldn’t bring himself to turn, but jerked a thumb over his shoulder towards the bed. “Wanna get in on this, then?” 

Wanda shrieked; Pietro punched him in the nose.

 

X---X

 

At least Natasha punched him in the arm, rather than set off his recently-staunched nosebleed again. “You completely deserved that and more,” she assured him, even as she resignedly set about wrapping some ice in a towel.

He knew that; he wasn’t a _complete_ idiot. Still… “Would I have deserved it if I hadn’t made the incest joke?” 

“ _Was_ it a joke?”

“ _Yes_ , Jesus Christ, Natasha.”

She threw the ice pack on the table in front of him and then threw her hands up in the air. “Don’t ask me to fathom your fucked up mind, James, you’re the one who wants to fuck his brother.”

“ _Step_ brother,” he emphasized, unable to deny that either. “And come on, we’re not related, we met when we were fourteen, _and_ we knew one another even before our parents were fucking, that’s totally _not_ incest.” Natasha didn’t look wholly convinced. “It’s like that book with the adopted vampire kids who are all sleeping with each other.”

Natasha stared, dumbfounded. “Did you just - ?” She jabbed her finger viciously at the door. “Get the fuck out of my dorm.” 

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, Christ.”

“Just… ice your goddamn nose and shut up.”

He sketched a sardonic salute; she flipped him the bird. 

They lapsed into a companionable silence. Bucky sat and iced his nose as ordered and watched Natasha drift around the tiny kitchen, tidying up from her earlier dinner. She was standing at the sink, drying a glass, when her quiet voice cut the stillness. “I can feel you staring.”

“What did I do to deserve you?” he asked, keenly aware of how nasal his voice was, and muffled as he spoke around the towel pressed to his face.

“Some days,” she reached up on tip-toes to return the glass to its proper place, and then turned and leaned against the counter to stare down on him, arms crossed over her chest, “I’m not really sure that you do.”

But a light smile pulled at the corner of her lips and softened her words and posture.

“Are you staying?”

He bit his lip and smiled tightly. “Do you mind? Brock’s in a mood, Sharon dumped him.”

“Again?”

“Again.”

“Hm.” He caught the brief flicker of concern in her eyes; pretended not to notice. “You know I don’t mind. There’s a pair of sweats you left here last time on top of the dresser.”

“Thanks, Nat.”

As happened more often than not, they ended up curled up together on her standard-issue, narrow dorm bed. Tonight, Bucky ended up with his head resting in her lap while she sat up reading, free hand carding absently through his hair. The satin fabric of her shorts was cold against his bare chest, his t-shirt sacrificed to his nosebleed as he fled the Maximoffs’ apartment, but he just pressed closer. “I miss this,” he confessed.

“Your face in my lap?” she asked drily, without missing a beat.

But in a moment of unusual sobriety, he didn’t rise to the innuendo. “Living in the dorms,” he clarified.

Her hand stilled a moment, and then curled to scratch lightly against his scalp; he shivered. “Move back in,” she suggested. 

“That’d be a bit silly, wouldn’t it? We live eight blocks away and my bedroom is as big as one of these apartments.”

The hand stilled again, and then left his head altogether. He could hear the rustle of her closing her book, resting it on the nightstand, and then she shifted to lie down, mirroring his position so they were face-to-face. “But you’re not _happy_ at home.”

“My mother wants me there.”

Natasha was smart, sharp, and understood very well what he was really saying. “If Rumlow won’t pay room and board, I’m sure if you asked the St -”

“I’m _not_ taking any more of the Starks’ charity, Nat. C’mon.”

“He’s your godfather, Bucky, it’s not like he -”

“Don’t call me that.”

Her lips pressed together in a thin line, but she nodded tersely before rolling over onto her back and letting out a heavy sigh. “I have work early.”

“Want me to take the futon?”

“No.” She rolled the rest of the way over and let him drape an arm across her waist and bury his nose in her thick hair. He could feel the tension in her shoulders though, even as his own breathing started to even out. Just as his mind was starting to drift into that semi-conscious, half-asleep state, she jolted him back into alertness. “I thought you were going to start seeing someone about all your unresolved daddy issues.”

“Eh, I had a couple appointments.” An expectant silence prompted him to explain. “She refused to keep me on after I slept with her son.” 

“Oh, for fuck’s sake, James.”

 

X---X

 

Returning to the Rumlows’ 5th Avenue mansion the next day was like an exercise in contradictions, reminding Bucky just how drastically, how _absurdly_ , his life had changed in the past two years. Even in an upscale, expensive, private school like SHIELD, a dorm was a dorm, functional and utilitarian and designed with sleeping and schoolwork in mind and not much else. Most of SHIELD’s residential students disappeared for the summer – back home or pampered family vacations or staying with local friends who had summer estates on Long Island.

Natasha stuck around because her father was always going back and forth to Russia for business (she’d laughed off Bucky’s semi-joking suggestion that he was entrenched in the Russian mob in a distinctly non-reassuring manner) and she valued her privacy too much to fathom spending summers with a friend.

The summer after his first year at SHIELD, Bucky had kept up his room in the dorm mostly because the Starks had paid for it without actually asking, and he wasn’t going to argue about sticking close to Nat. Regular weekly treks back across the river to Brooklyn mostly assuaged any feelings of guilt about abandoning his mother.

Turns out, she’d been using her free time productively, anyway. She married Frank Rumlow in the fall of Bucky’s second year, and they’d pulled him out of the dorms between terms. SHIELD charity case to bona fide resident of the Upper East Side essentially overnight.

Which left him here, staring blankly at marble floors and carved stone bannisters, under the watchful gaze of doormen and security guards, never quite sure how much of his sense of gross inferiority was reflected in their eyes or simply knocking around his own jumbled head.

“Barnes. About time.” Brock, who suffered from no such sentiments of inadequacy, swept into the foyer like a proprietary tornado and hooked a hand under Bucky’s elbow. “C’mon.” He let himself be led up to the floor they shared, the floor that was self-sufficient to the point that they really never had to see the rest of the house or its occupants if they didn’t want to (and Bucky never did). Brock surprised him though by prodding him through the door of his bedroom; usually, he opted to invade Bucky’s space.

He closed the door and left Bucky standing aimlessly and feeling out of place, crossing quickly to his desk and opening up his laptop. “The parentals were trying to get ahold of you last night,” he threw over his shoulder absently.

“Dammit,” Bucky fumbled his cell out of his pocket and scowled. He’d turned off the ringer and the text alerts when the deluge of angry messages from the Maximoffs started pouring in, and then his phone had died sometime in the night at Natasha’s. “What’d they want?”

Brock shrugged. “Something about heading out of town for a few weeks.”

“Oh, they realized I wouldn’t notice if they didn’t say anything?”

“I do believe those were nearly my father’s exact words, yes.”

He scoffed. “Whatever. I’ll find them later. Now- what do _you_ want?” 

Brock found what he was looking for on his computer and stood. Beckoning Bucky closer, he offered him his seat and hovered over his shoulder, murmuring quiet against his ear. “I have a challenge for you.”

Bucky skimmed the headline of the article, nonplussed. “ _Coming of Ace in a Hypersexual World_ : _One teen’s journey to asexual self-awareness._ Oh, brother dear, are you trying to tell me something?" 

A hand clamped down firmly on the back of Bucky’s neck. “Keep reading.” 

He dutifully obliged. “ _From asthma to pneumonia to anemia I’ve been sick all my life and, for a long time, it seemed like it was just one more thing that was wrong with me_ … Jesus Christ, is this kid for real?... _every relationship I tried inevitably reached an impasse when it came to the more physical aspects…_ ” Bucky rolled his eyes and tilted his head up to look at Brock. “I’ll take closeted gay, internalized homophobe for five hundred, Alex.”

“If you’d _keep reading_ ,” the hand on his neck squeezed tightly for emphasis, “he says he tried dating guys, too.”

Heaving a long-suffering sigh, Bucky sank back down and settled in to read the whole thing. It wasn’t a long article, just some spotlight piece from an NYC Pride website, and he found himself no closer to understanding Brock’s interest in it as he got to the ending. “ _With the support of numerous online communities [editor’s note: resources listed below] and the unfailing patience of my girlfriend, Peggy, I can proudly and confidently say that I identify as a romantic asexual_. Huh,” he declared. “That’s, uh. Well. Is there such thing as an aromantic sexual? That’d probably be me. Is that what this is about? Is this an intervention?”

“God, shut up, not everything is about you, Barnes.”

“You’re the one who dragged me in here to read the life story of,” he scrolled back up to the top of the article, “one Steven G. Rogers.”

Brock’s hands settled on his shoulders, kneading lightly as he leaned down again to whisper against his ear, “Because I want you to fuck him.”

A sharp, humorless laugh slipped past his lips, before he arched out from under Brock’s grip and twisted around to stare at him. “What, you’re serious? _Why_?” 

A feral grin touched his stepbrother’s lips. “Because girlfriend Peggy is Peggy Carter. Peggy Carter is Sharon’s cousin. Peggy Carter is the British Ambassador’s daughter, and was at the Starks’ Memorial Day gathering two weeks ago that you skipped because you drunkenly tried to put the moves on Pepper Potts three nights earlier at the year-end party.”

“Ah – aha,” Bucky clapped his hands together in delight. “And just what did Peggy Carter catch you doing that she later relayed to her, unbeknownst to you, cousin Sharon - thereby convincing Sharon to break up with you?”

“Honestly? No idea, I just barely remember her as a frigid British bitch, could have been anything from topless girls in a hot tub to a drunken brawl with Clint Barton.”

“Aw, Barton’s such a human disaster though.”

Brock worked the inside of his cheek, deep in thought. “Actually, come to think of it, maybe one of the girls in the hot tub was his girlfriend?”

“Now you’re starting to sound like me.”

“Don’t look so approving.”

Bucky shrugged. “So Sharon found out you’re a piece of shit; was bound to happen eventually. How the fuck am I supposed to find and seduce Steven G. Rogers? You know how many people live in this city?” 

“Ah,” he held up a finger. “The plot thickens.”

“Do tell.”

“Rogers’ mother just married Headmaster Pierce. He’s transferring to SHIELD for his senior year.”

“Shut the fuck up.”

“Swear to God.”

Bucky looked down and bit his lip thoughtfully. “S’pretty fucked up, you know. Why not just go at Peggy directly?”

“Because,” Brock drawled like it was the most obvious thing in the world, “it’ll be too easy to trace back to me. And I need to keep my nose clean after the… _mild scandals_ of last year.” Bucky rolled his eyes at the floor. Drinking in the dorms with his football buddies, a strong suspicion of cheating… it would take a hell of a lot more effort than that to find a scandal that Frank Rumlow couldn’t buy his son back out of. “But _you_ ,” he tipped Bucky’s chin back up to draw his gaze, “have a certain reputation to uphold, don’t you? I know you’re getting bored if your idea of Friday night entertainment is letting the Maximoff twins realize you’re double-timing them.”

His thumb skimmed softly across the bruises that had blossomed across the bridge of Bucky’s nose, the first indication he’d even noticed them. “I really thought Pietro was out of the country,” Bucky protested, shivering against the ghosting touch. “Anyway – I’m not sure risking Pierce’s ire is really my favorite idea for starting my senior year.”

“You wouldn’t have to wait that long. Pierce is in Tahiti on his honeymoon. Guess where Rogers is staying while his mommy’s off banging his new daddy?”

“Where.”

Brock grinned. “He’s on the island, at the Starks’. Guess they needed a new hapless case to adopt.” A creeping flush rose in Bucky’s face, one he desperately tried to will away. “You look unconvinced.”

Bucky climbed to his feet and paced around the space between the desk and the bed, running a hand through his dark hair. Brock watched him closely, predatory. “Seems like an awful lot o’trouble for not a lot o’reward,” he admitted.

“You’re riled up; your Brooklyn’s coming out.”

The flush returned full-force. “Fuck you, Brock.”

Brock pounced. He wrapped strong arms around Bucky’s waist and spun him, crowded him up against the edge of the bed so that Bucky could feel lean muscles pressed along his back. “That what it would take?” Brock murmured into his neck, letting his hips roll suggestively against Bucky’s ass. “Would that sweeten the pot enough for you?” 

“Earning the ire of Peggy and Sharon Carter, possibly the Starks, _and_ the headmaster? You must think your dick is something _magical_.”

“No,” Brock turned him again and pushed him, sent him sprawling across the expansive bed before climbing up to straddle him, staring down mockingly at where Bucky was half-hard in his jeans, despite his protestations. “But I think that, ever since our parents got married, I’m the _one_ person you know you can’t have, and it just fucking _kills_ you.”

 

X---X


	2. The Meeting

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bucky encounters a hiccup in his schemes a bit sooner than expected; Natasha is scary and knows everything.

The Starks’ mansion rose out of the landscaped estate, all sweeping stairs and carved balustrades, framed by bubbling fountains in shallow reflecting pools. A piece of old English aristocracy in New York, and one of the largest properties on the island. Not to mention the state-of-the-art, ultra-modern apartment they kept up in Manhattan, where they really spent most of their time through the year.

And the Starks were _new_ money.

Someone had once tried to give Tony shit over that fact when they were freshmen at SHIELD. Tony had just laughed and walked away, snobby in an _entirely_ different way than those heirs of oil tycoons and investment bankers and real estate moguls. Tony was an intellectual elitist; no one was as smart as him, not really, not even their teachers in some subjects, but at the end of the day, he just wanted some evidence that the people around him weren’t completely useless. 

His girlfriend Pepper tempered some of his more fantastical ideas, had a very focused and organized brain to offset the whirlwind chaos that went hand-in-hand with his genius, and there was a reason that the Parker kid over in Yearbook wanted to create a new senior superlative this year so Tony Stark and Pepper Potts could be named _Most Likely to Someday Rule the World._

It was Maria Stark, however, who came gliding down the stone stairs as Bucky relinquished his car to the valet. She was dressed to go riding, somehow even making _that_ look elegantly graceful, but she swooped in on Bucky with a casual delight that stoked a twinge of guilt in his chest for how long it’d been since he’d seen them.

“James, darling,” she kissed both cheeks and then held him at arm’s length, sizing him up. “You should have told us you were dropping by, we’re getting ready to go on a little afternoon ride.”

“I’m sorry, Missus Stark – it was an impulsive thing, just had to get out of the city for a bit.” The backpack slung over one shoulder perhaps undermined the claim of spontaneity, but Maria didn’t mention it. 

She turned him around and guided him up the steps to the front doors, arm linked through his, holding him close. “Well, you’re always welcome, James; shall I have Howard call the stables to saddle up another horse?” He murmured a bit noncommittally, glancing around the foyer as they walked inside. “Anthony is in the kitchen with Pepper packing some lunch for us to take along.”

Bucky cocked a brow at that. “ _Tony_ is making lunch?”

“Well, as much as Pepper can bully him into helping, I’m sure.”

“ _Bucky Barnes_ ,” a voice boomed down from the landing, and Bucky looked up to see Howard descending towards them. “I thought that was your car.”

Bucky grinned and took his hand. “How are you, Mister Stark?”

“Aw hell, I know I’ve gone old and gray, Bucky, but -”

“ _James,_ dad,” a drawling voice interrupted from a doorway at the back of the foyer. “He goes by _James_ now.”

Howard muttered under his breath. “Only because _Frank Rumlow_ , of all people…” 

“Howard…” Maria murmured warningly, and he dropped it. Bucky looked away from their tight smiles that were not at all reassuring, and instead found himself dealing with Tony’s calculating stare. “James, dear,” Maria drew his attention right back, “would you like to join us, or shall we catch up later? I can have Marguerite open up your room, if you think you’ll stay?”

_Your room_. That fanned the guilt licking up his throat that much further. He hadn’t stayed in that room in nearly two years; had barely seen the Starks in that time at all, save his normal dealings with Tony at school.

He shook his head almost imperceptibly, reminded himself why he was here. Scouting out the terrain. Taking a gamble, he hazarded, “I think I’ll stay, if you don’t mind. Not feeling much up for riding though, might just take a short stroll in the gardens; get the city out of my lungs.”

“Oh good _god_ , you sound like the new kid, that’s perfect,” Tony snagged his wrist and started pulling him abruptly through the doorway from which he’d just emerged, heading towards the back of the house. “C’mon, you can entertain him for a while and give me a break.”

Apparently his usefulness was reasserted and his drunken pass at Pepper forgotten.

“Anthony,” Maria called after them, “be nice. Steven is a lovely young man.”

Tony snorted softly under his breath, for Bucky’s ears alone. “The kid’s a _wreck_ ,” he whispered. They passed by the kitchen and Bucky threw Pepper a startled wave and then they were gone again. “Can’t go riding because the horses and allergies and asthma but, honestly, I don’t know if we’d have a mount small enough for him, he’s shorter than Pepper which apparently has something to do with being born with a bad heart and a bad spine but at least that shit we can fix now, marvels of modern medicine and all, so-”

“Anthony!” Howard barked from back by the kitchen, “Do not just abandon this lovely young lady to finish the task I assigned to _you_.”

“I’m introducing James and Steve, dad, _God_ ,” Tony hollered back, and then slipped out a set of French doors and stared around the patio and the garden there. “I swear,” he spun on his heel and pulled his phone from his pocket, “my father likes you more than me.”

And they were back inside, continuing the search for the elusive Steven G. Rogers. “He just likes me out of a misplaced sense of survivor’s guilt and obligation,” Bucky assured him, hurrying to keep up and then narrowly avoiding crashing into Tony’s shoulder as he stopped abruptly and turned.

Dark, pensive eyes narrowed. “You’re getting all cynical and self-deprecating with age, Barnes. I kinda like it; you sound more like me.”

And he was off again. 

 

After being informed via text that Steve was showering, Tony ended up depositing Bucky in his old room, where the housekeeper was already busy dusting after opening up the windows and bringing in some fresh flowers.

“We’ll be a couple hours, make yourself at home, God, I can’t believe I’m going on a horseback double date with my _parents_ , kill me now, but Pepper’s something of a romantic, so -”

The door clicked shut, leaving Bucky feeling as wrong-footed as usual by his interactions with Tony, but at least this one hadn’t involved the fine details of obscure theories in quantum physics, so. 

He took some time to reacquaint himself with the space. Oversized four-poster bed, desk, dresser, and wardrobe all in matching (and undoubtedly obscenely expensive) rosewood; a utilitarian cream and beige color scheme that was the only marked difference from the last time he’d set foot in here, the space rendered a touch more neutral from his early teen insistence on blacks and grays and gaudy splashes of red here and there.

A picture frame on the desk that he couldn’t bring himself to look at too closely before sweeping it into a drawer. 

He pulled his journal out of his backpack and sprawled across the bed.

 

X---X

 

Even after Tony’s rushed description, Bucky wasn’t entirely sure what to expect as the door to one of the numerous guest rooms swung open. Nothing could have prepared him though for his first glimpse of one Steven G. Rogers, all damp, mussed hair and perturbed brows drawn in between his eyes and the tip of his nose all red and irritated.

A beat passed. 

Steve sniffled, loudly.

Bucky grinned.

“Sorry,” Steve produced a tissue from his pocket and turned half away to blow his nose, “allergies. Um – can I help you…?”

“James.” Bucky stuck out his hand. Steve grimaced and shook his head, nodding to the tissue crumpled in his fist. Bucky shrugged and tucked his hand back into his pocket. “C’mon, let’s go.”

“I – what?” But Bucky was already hooking his arm in the crook of Steve’s elbow and pulling him forward, while the smaller boy protested with spluttering indignation. “Where are we - ? Wait, just _hang on_!” He planted his heels and forced Bucky to either stop or literally drag him down the hallway. “First things first,” he unhooked his arm and ducked back to the bedroom, reappearing just a few seconds later and tucking a couple of small items into his pockets, “inhaler and eye drops.”

Bucky forcibly tamped down the rising smile. Jesus Christ, this kid _was_ a walking disaster.

“ _Second_ ,” Steve planted himself determinedly and stared up several inches at Bucky, “uh. Sorry, who are you?”

“I’m James.”

“Yep, got that much,” he nodded indulgently, eyes wide, and Bucky decided that in addition to absolute train wreck, Steven G. Rogers might just be something of a little shit.

“Friend of the family,” he threw him a bone. “I go to school with Tony and Pepper.”

There was a moment of confused silence, and then: “Oh, you mean Anthony and Virginia?” 

Bucky stopped, sighed, ran a hand over his face, and then turned to meet the orneriest crooked smile of his life. “You’re kind of a punk, aren’t you?” The smile broadened. “James Barnes,” he offered. “Here to visit for a few days, take a break from the city. Got here right as everyone was taking off, but Tony told me you were around, so we’re going to have lunch. It’s Steven, right?”

“Steve,” he corrected amicably.

“Bet Headmaster Pierce calls you Steven.”

A wry smile pulled at his lips. “It does seem that the richer and more important one is, the greater the aversion to nicknames.”

“Too true, Stevie, too true.”

“Call me that again and I _will_ fight you.”

His tone was friendly, but there was something resolute shining behind bright blue eyes that gave Bucky pause. “I believe you,” he assured him after a moment, and then led the way to the porch where he’d asked Marguerite to set out their lunch. “Will this be okay?” he paused in the midst of pulling out the chair for a bemused Steve. “The allergy thing…?”

“M’fine,” Steve waved him off with more of an air of determination to not be catered to or seen as an inconvenience than any particular enthusiasm for staying. “Why do I feel like I’m being wined and dined here?”

“Did’ya want some wine?” Bucky cocked a brow and smirked.

“Thanks, no,” Steve deadpanned. He picked up a fork and started in on his salad, but continued squinting mistrustfully across the table. “Is it a _sucking up to the headmaster’s kid_ thing?” he asked after a few bites.

“Jesus,” Bucky remarked mildly as he poured iced tea for them both, “you really don’t beat around the bush, do you?”

“’Cause I hardly know the guy, if’m being honest,” Steve confessed. “I’m just a kid from Brooklyn.”

Bucky blinked up in genuine interest at that. “Oh yeah? Whereabouts?”

“Greenpoint.”

“No shit? Williamsburg born and raised, ‘til my mother remarried a couple years ago.”

Steve offered a wry grin, settling back in his chair slightly, less on edge. “And look at us now, eating Howard Stark’s food on Howard Stark’s porch at Howard Stark’s fancy Long Island estate. Where’d you go to high school before?”

“Ah – well, I… didn’t. I mean, not that I didn’t go to high school, but I’ve been at SHIELD since ninth.”

“Oh – sorry, I just assumed…” But the wheels were turning and Bucky could see the moment that Steve pieced that particular puzzle together, a flicker of recognition in those curious eyes. “Oh! You’re the Starks’ godson or something, aren’t you?”

“Or something,” Bucky agreed. “Mister Stark was exceptionally generous to pay for my schooling until… well… my stepfather pays now. But.”

Steve cringed and busied his mouth with some more salad while he sorted out his reply. “I didn’t mean… if I implied something, it wasn’t - ”

“You weren’t wrong,” Bucky gently rescued him from his rambling apologies, “wondering how a single mother in Williamsburg could afford to send her kid to a place like SHIELD. She couldn’t. We owe the Starks a lot.”

He meant the words, he really did, but they were delivered with a trained sort of grace he’d learned only too well in the past two years. Before that even, with the oft rude but usually innocuous questions posed to the tragically ordinary boy among the children of society’s elites.

Bucky decided it was time to try for a bit of deflection.

“So,” he remarked, tone casual, “I read your manifesto.”

Steve’s fork hit his plate with a clatter. “You know what?” he barked, and Bucky looked up in surprise to see him throw the napkin from his lap onto the table, “Fuck you.”

Deflection: successful. Consequences: unforeseen.

“I’m sorry, what?”

“Do you even know what that word means? _Manifesto_?”

“Uh, well - ” 

“You’re as bad as all the assholes who think Pride is about some elusively ambiguous _gay agenda_. Manifesto,” he scoffed, climbing to his full (admittedly short) height and glaring down at Bucky’s slack-jawed, wide-eyed stare, “like I’m staking out a position, trying to persuade anyone else to a point of view. That article was about _me_ coming to terms with who _I_ am, and if even one other confused kid out there can find support and encouragement from my story, then it was _damn well_ worth it, _social propriety_ bullshit you Upper East Side snobs go in for be damned.”

He smacked his hip into the table in his hurry to escape, paused to anxiously right his untouched glass of iced tea, and hurried to the door. After a moment’s pause though, he turned and fixed Bucky with an icy glare and a saccharine smile. “But then again, I suppose I shouldn’t expect someone of your _reputation_ to understand anything about it.”

And he slipped away.

A full minute passed before Bucky could tear his gaze from the doorway through which Steve had vanished, but then he returned to his meal with a shrug and an air of forced nonchalance. “Well,” he spoke to the empty porch, “I think I hit a nerve.”

The implications of Steve’s parting shot caught up with him after another minute though. “Wait a second,” he froze, and dropped his own fork down on the table. “Someone of _my reputation_?” he demanded, and then marched off after Steve.

 

He was somewhat expecting that Steve would have fled to some obscure corner of the mansion where Bucky might not find him, but the door swung open almost immediately after he knocked. “I’m sorry,” Steve groaned, running a hand across his face, red in mortification. “God, I’m really – I’m sorry. You probably didn’t mean anything by it, it’s just…

“It’s people makin’ you feel like you got somethin’ to prove.”

“…Yeah. I guess.”

“I get that. You’ll fight that impulse a whole lot in the next few months. Felt that way since I started at SHIELD.”

Something in Steve’s expression softened as he stared up at Bucky, and he stepped sideways and held out an arm. “Wanna come in and try this again?”

Bucky nodded solemnly, but was desperately organizing the notes in his head to transfer to his journal later. Steve, it seemed, had something of a weakness for shared life experience, and Bucky was _very_ good at letting the Brooklyn drawl creep back into his voice when it suited his needs.

“My reputation, huh?” he probed as he flopped down in a swiveling desk chair, which he turned and leaned back as far as it would go, crossing his ankle over his knee and propping his chin in one hand.

If possible, Steve went even pinker. “ _God_ ,” he groaned again, “I’m – I shouldn’t’a said that, James, I’m sorry. If I don’t want people judging me for _not_ wanting sex, I got no right to judge them for - ”

“Uh-uh,” Bucky shook his head slowly, letting a mischievous grin creep onto his face, “I don’t care. S’the way of the world. But I _do_ want to know -” he bit his lip and leaned forward, “Who’s been tellin’ you stories about me, Steve Rogers?”

“That’s not – I didn’t…”

“Was it Peggy?” he cocked his head curiously. Sharon had never paid him much mind, but he wouldn’t put it past Brock to have preemptively tried to orchestrate some sabotage in this little challenge of his.

Steve’s brows furrowed though. “Peg – what? Do you even _know_ Peggy…? _Oh_. Right. Her cousin and your brother were a thing, weren’t they?”

“ _Step_ brother,” Bucky corrected in a high singsong. “Guess not, then.”

“I’m not telling you, James. It doesn’t matter, anyway.”

“Matters t’me.” Steve stared though, stubborn and unyielding, and Bucky sighed. “Well, at least tell me what they _said_ about me, that’s just common courtesy.”

“It wasn’t – _bad_ , exactly, like I said, I got no right…” Bucky blinked, unimpressed, and Steve deflated a bit. “You’re not gonna let this go anytime soon, are you?”

He winked. “Nope.”

“The term _hedonist_ might have been thrown around.”

“Wow, that’s an exotic word for _slut_.”

Steve cringed. “Look, James – I got defensive, I lashed out. I shouldn’t’a said anything at all. Can we forget about it? Please? I’d like it if we could be friends, maybe.”

Bucky took a minute to look around the room and subtly observe Steve and distractedly wonder if he’d bitten off more than he could chew in his agreement to help Brock get his revenge on Peggy Carter.

And then Steve bit his lower lip, worried it until it was bright pink, brows drawn down in an earnest apprehension and what Bucky thought was genuine regret. 

He smiled brightly. “Sure thing, Stevie.” Steve glared, but one corner of his mouth quirked up. “Already forgotten. Let’s be friends. I’d like that.”

 

X---X

 

“So – you fuck him yet?”

“Strategizing,” Bucky mumbled without looking up, “shut the door.”

Brock did so, but asked, “Why? No one here anyway.”

His hand stilled in the middle of a word and he peered up at his stepbrother’s piercing dark eyes. “With you on the _other_ side of it, I mean.”

He was predictably ignored, and he tucked his journal away with a sigh and turned around at the desk to watch Brock climb up on the bed and lean back on his elbows. “Is he cute?” he taunted, lips curled slyly.

Bucky snagged a sheet from his printer and passed it over. “Not traditionally so, maybe,” he allowed, while Brock picked Steve out of the shot of the two of them with Tony that Pepper had taken by the pool the afternoon prior.

“Shit, and I thought Stark was a shrimp.”

“I’ve run into an unexpected complication,” Bucky ignored him. He leaned forward, elbows propped on his knees, deep in thought. “He made a jab at my _reputation_ ; he must know somebody at school already, or a mutual friend maybe. Not either of the Carters,” he answered Brock’s unspoken question.

“Facebook?”

The screen behind him still showed Pepper Potts’s glowing smile. He pulled up Steve’s page instead and glared. “No mutual friends, no luck cross referencing with people I know but wouldn’t let near my friends’ list with a ten foot pole, and he’s got like, two _thousand_ friends because he’s a popular little social activist shit, so.”

“So ask Romanoff. She knows everything that goes on around here.” Bucky pursed his lips and looked down. “Oh,” Brock pushed up from his reclining position on the bed and scooted to the edge, reaching out a foot to spin the chair around in a slow circle so he could see Bucky’s perturbed expression. “That’s right. Romanoff is still harboring some ill-thought fantasy that you’re a decent person deep down, isn’t she?” He hooked a foot behind Bucky’s knee and dragged him slowly forward, the wheels of the chair rumbling against the hardwood. “I understand,” Brock crooned once Bucky was close enough to have to peer up at him through his lashes, “if you need to call it quits already. Twice cock-blocked, and it’s not even lunch.”

With a frustrated growl, Bucky shoved off the bed and rolled the chair backwards. He jumped up just before it crashed into the desk and snagged his bag off the back, tossing in his journal and a haphazard collection of clothing, his purported excuse for today’s trek to the city before returning to the Starks’.

“Where are you going?” Brock called, already lying back on the bed, perfectly at home in Bucky’s room. 

“Where the fuck do you think?” Bucky grumbled under his breath.

 

X---X

 

He aimed for casual.

“Say, did you hear that Headmaster Pierce just married?”

Natasha blinked sleep out of her eyes, standing at the door in a pair of starry fleece pajama pants and a hot pink tank top that clashed marvelously with her hair. “Good morning to you too, James.”

Nailed it.

“Late night?”

“Watched a few of those shitty horror movies Clint loves so much.” She stepped aside and let him in the door, then followed him to the kitchenette and collapsed at the table. Bucky went straight to setting the coffee maker, and chuckled at the blind thumbs-up she sent, face buried in the other arm. “Over at Laura’s. Maximoffs were there, too.” He murmured something vaguely apologetic at the mention of the twins, and when he turned back around she was looking up and rolling her eyes. “I did a bit of damage control. I mean, there’s not much to be said about the fact that you fucked them both inside a week, but I did my best to assure them that the offer of an incestuous threesome was just your special brand of awkward humor.”

He pressed the button to start the pot brewing; Natasha stared at it hungrily. “I’ll say it again,” he pulled up the chair opposite, “I don’t deserve you.” 

“Damn right. So what the hell do you want at the crack of dawn?”

“It’s… quarter past noon?”

“Fuck you.” He waggled his eyebrows; she glanced up at the ceiling, pleading for patience from above. “Seriously though, what’s the sudden interest in Pierce’s love-life about?”

“You know he got married?”

“Mmhmm.”

“You know his stepson is coming to SHIELD for his last year of high school?”

“A little birdy might’a mentioned it.”

Bucky leaned forward across the table. “Know anything about him?”

Natasha straightened in the blink of an eye and fixed him with a stern glare. “ _James_.” 

“Wha-? No!” he protested the damningly accurate assumption her mind had jumped to, because she was Natasha and she knew everything, but more importantly, she knew Bucky better than anyone, perhaps better than even his own mother these days. “I just – I met him, yeah? At the Starks. And he’s a sweet kid, but the first - ”

“A _sweet kid_?” Natasha demanded, before springing to her feet and practically lunging for the coffee like it would somehow get her through this conversation in one piece. “Jesus, James. Smitten much?” She hesitated. “You know he’s…”

“ _Yes_ , oh my god, Nat, that’s not… whatever, it’s fine, that’s not what I was going to – it’s just that - ”

“Jesus Christ, Barnes, would you get it together?”

“He’d _heard_ of me,” Bucky finally choked out in a rough grumble. “In a not-so-charitable light. I’m just curious if _you_ know who he might have known already, so that _I_ can know who I need to have words with about spreading rumors around.”

She took a slow sip, seemingly oblivious to how hot the coffee must have been, and then asked drily, “Are they rumors if they’re actually true?”

“ _Nat_.” After another protracted sip and unimpressed stare, he realized she was stalling. “You _do_ know something.”

A light huff escaped her and she set the mug down on the counter. “I… have a suspicion. But I probably wouldn’t pull on this thread if I were you.” 

“ _Nat_.”

Heavy silence weighed between them, punctuated by the faint sound of another door down the hallway slamming, the laughter of a couple of the other residents heading out to lunch. As their footsteps faded away, Natasha threw up her hands in frustration, turned and poured another cup of coffee, and then collapsed back into her seat at the table while keeping the integrity of her coffee impressively intact. “Steve Rogers,” she said slowly, “attended one of those leaders of tomorrow, student leadership conference, whatever-the-hell type things in D.C. a couple summers ago. As did Sam Wilson.”

_That_ took Bucky aback. “Wilson’s not a shit-stirrer.”

“Noo, but…his mother’s the one who introduced Missus Rogers and Headmaster Pierce.”

“Ohh, fuck me.”

“Yeah.”

“That nosey bitch.” He ran his hands through his hair and leaned back in his chair, contemplative. “Shit.”

Natasha caught his eye and urged him seriously, “Just let it go, Bucky, please. You know what she’s like, and I’m sure Sam had no part in it.”

Something in her earnestness caught him off-guard, made him ignore the use of the nickname he usually shot down. It was almost defensive, and he realized…

“Natalia Romanoff, do you _like_ Sam?” he asked gleefully.

“Shut up,” she mumbled, faint color rising in her cheeks, which she promptly hid behind her coffee.

“I can honestly say I’ve never known you to be shy about… well, anything, but certainly not your affections. What is this newfound bashfulness?”

She bristled and the effect dropped immediately. “I’m not _bashful_.”

“Hesitation, then.”

“Other than the nightmare mother thing?” she shot snidely, and then sighed. “The minister father thing, maybe.”

“Ohh. You know,” he considered, “I’m not sure Sam’s quite the good little Christian boy his parents like to think, honestly.”

“That doesn’t help when I become the redheaded harlot who corrupted their precious baby, but thanks.”

He grinned broadly, couldn’t help it. “Oh, Nat, you got it _bad_ , don’t you?”

But the moment for embarrassment had passed, and she reverted to her stern glare overtop her coffee. “Just – leave Sam and his mother alone, okay? Please, James?”

“Sure thing,” he smiled tightly, and thought that he maybe even meant it.


	3. The Payback

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Brock is an enabler and Bucky breaks his word.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry, wanted to have this done several days ago and it kind of kicked my ass instead. Ended up longer than expected and still didn't cover everything I anticipated, so I think we're going to up the total chapters. Tentatively.

Nearly a week after Bucky’s arrival, Tony begged off for a breather back in the city, because Tony Stark was the sort of person who found the unstructured leisure of vacation to be more stressful than his normal chaotic day-to-day existence. And so, with strict instructions to not blow anything up and to call immediately if he caught anything on fire, Tony grumbled as he piled into the back of Bucky’s red Tesla Model S with Pepper, which they were only taking because the four of them wouldn’t fit into Tony’s beloved and over-the-top Audi R8, and forbidding him from taking it was Maria’s insurance that Tony would have to come _back_ to complete his obligatory summer family time.

The past week had been something of an exercise in frustration for Bucky, with Steve proving to be a bit of a loner whenever he could get away with it. He was at first inclined to attribute this to their rocky start, except whenever Steve _did_ deign to join the rest of them, he always smiled brightly at Bucky and sat at his side at meals, and more often than not they gravitated towards one another’s company in the midst of swimming or walking, or one hilariously failed attempt at croquet.

He’d half-expected Steve to beg off from the stint in the city, but he jumped at the opportunity eagerly, and packed up enough of his stuff for a few days away, threw most of it in the trunk, and clutched one tattered satchel to his chest as he settled in the front passenger seat, ignoring Bucky’s bemused glance.

“Everyone ready?”

For the tenth time, Tony piped in with, “You should let me drive,” and got smacked on the thigh for his trouble.

“You,” Bucky pulled down the drive with a final wave at Howard and Maria, “drive like a maniac and are welcome to do so in the comfort of your own vehicle.”

It was nearly two hours from Southampton to Manhattan, which Tony claimed would have taken half the time had he been behind the wheel. He finally piped down when Pepper fell asleep with her head propped on his shoulder, and then passed out himself a few minutes later. Bucky spared a glance for Steve, but he was curled up in the seat and staring out the window, and quiet for so long that Bucky thought he’d fallen asleep too. 

The buzzing of a cellphone snapped Steve instantly into alertness though. He checked the text, and then glanced sidelong at Bucky. “Mind if I make a quick call?”

“So long as you don’t mind that it’s literally impossible not to eavesdrop on it.”

He desperately wished he could tune it out though from the first soft, “Hey, Peg.” From the one-sided conversation, Bucky decided that they were first talking about the ongoing process of combining the Pierce and Rogers households, which seemed slated to take place while the happy couple was away and Steve was out of the packers’ and movers’ way.

“Yeah, we’re coming back for a few – we as in me, Tony, Pepper – you met Pepper Potts, right? – and James.” Pause. “Barnes.” A slightly longer pause, and Bucky could practically _hear_ the flush rising in Steve’s face and… sure enough, the ear he could see with Steve turned away and mumbling at the window was bright red. “ _Yes_ , and we’re all in the car now, so – okay. Okay. Yeah, I’ll let you know when we – yeah. I’ll see you soon.”

Steve tucked the phone primly into the front pocket of the bag still jammed into the seat with him, and then matter-of-factly informed Bucky, “Peggy says your brother’s a douchebag.”

“Well,” Bucky changed lanes, and then risked an extra glance in the mirror to relish the sight of Tony Stark drooling and wondered if Steve would take a picture for him, “she’s not wrong.” There was no response, and he looked over after another minute to study the brooding expression on Steve’s face. “Everything okay?” 

And got a listless shrug in return. “Peg’s going back to England.” 

“Ah,” Bucky nodded, like that explained everything; except he supposed, for two people who actually are emotionally invested in one another and don’t exist in what Natasha calls his commitment-phobic bubble, it kind of actually did.

Then they’re on Queens Boulevard approaching the Queensboro Bridge; Steve took his phone back out, snapped a quick shot of the Manhattan skyline, and was quiet for the rest of the drive.

 

X---X

“Welcome home, Master Stark.”

Steve jumped; Bucky and Pepper just waved absently at the security camera mounted over the doorway. “Welcome back, Miss Potts, Mister Barnes. Greetings, unknown male person.”

Tony waved a dismissive hand towards the intercom speaker. “Thanks, Jay.”

“Is Unknown Male Person an intruder, Master Stark?”

“No, Jarvis.”

“Shall I alert Mister Hogan downstairs that - ”

Tony cursed under his breath and fiddled with his phone, effectively cutting the disembodied voice off. “Program still needs some work,” he commented, unembarrassed, and headed around the corner and straight for the kitchen. He was already speaking around a mouthful of an energy bar by the time the rest of them caught up. “Trying to find the right balance between anticipating needs and taking too much initiative. Had to set some stricter limits last time I set the lab on fire and he called the fire department without even asking.” Pepper just looked resigned; Steve and Bucky stared. “It was just a _little_ fire!” he protested.

“So, wait,” Steve looked appropriately dumbfounded by Tony’s precocious genius. “That – that was a _computer_ , not a person?”

“JARVIS,” Pepper answered drily as she pulled down a glass and got a bottle of water from the fridge. “Tony’s first true love; possibly his only true love.”

“Aw, Pep.”

She kissed his cheek and grinned. Tony went all dopey around the eyes for about half a second, and then turned back to Steve and griped, “Mom won’t let me install him in the summer house. Says I get _obsessive_ ,” he air-quoted, while Pepper rolled her eyes in the background. “But hey, AI butlers, man, it’s the future. Gonna hone it at MIT and make my fortune.”

Steve blinked and looked around. “Uh. You’re already richer than God though?”

“Nope, my father is richer than God and I just want to carry on the legacy. Except I want to help people, not invent new and creative ways to blow them up.”

Bucky saw him start to reconsider that choice of phrasing a moment after it came out of his mouth, and then jumped in before Tony could stumble over himself and make it awkward. “Tell Steve about how you still say goodnight to Jarvis on your phone every night before bed when you’re not here.”

“You’re a traitor, and I hate you.”

“No, you don’t.”

“You’re applying to MIT then?”

Tony aborted whatever he was about to say, and his teeth clacked together. Bucky snorted. “Tony aced the SATs years ago, sent the results and a research proposal to their electronics laboratory without mentioning that he was _thirteen_ , and got a personalized letter _begging_ him to drop everything and enroll at once – oh, and would he please mind maybe sending along some transcripts and a letter or two of recommendation, as a formality?”

“Dad was a weird mixture of very proud and very angry about the phone call he had to make explaining that I would be attending high school before college and sorry for the confusion but yeah, they’ve pretty much been holding a spot ever since. A TA keeps me up-to-date on what the lab’s working on.”

“Tony’s got a crush on him,” Pepper confided in a stage whisper.

A hint of pink tinged Tony’s cheeks. “I do _not_ , I’ve never even met the guy.” He paused. “I don’t even _like_ guys, I’m not like Barnes over here who fucks anything that stays still long enough.”

“Hey.”

“ _Rhodey_ this, and _Rhodey_ that,” Pepper sighed dramatically, and then chased off after her boyfriend as he vanished into his lab to tinker more with JARVIS.

Steve just stared off after then, mouth hanging open in awe. “It’s like… seeing how the other half lives. And realizing you’re all just fucking _crazy_.” 

Bucky laughed, slung an arm around his narrow shoulders, and took him on a brief tour of the place.

 

X---X

 

The text from Brock came through late that night, almost eleven. The soothing glide of pen on paper paused as Bucky reached for his phone.

_I hear you might be back in town_

He sighed. For all they talked about Natasha being the eerily well-informed one, Brock had his own thriving network of information and spies. Though there probably wasn’t any great conspiracy behind this one, Tony had taken Pepper out to dinner at a fancy little restaurant near campus that was popular with the families of SHIELD students.

_Sad I haven’t come to see you yet?_

The response from Brock came too quick to be a reply to that message, and Bucky let out a groan of frustration as he read it. 

_You should stop in tonight. Having a small gathering._

And then moments later:

_Blow me._

Brock’s little get-togethers were dull at best, stuck-up teenagers who dressed like they were in their fifties and drank their daddies’ pilfered brandy and scotch like it made them cool. Trying too hard to prove themselves worthy of the position and power they knew would be handed to them in a few years anyway, just as it was handed to their fathers before them.

As if he could read his mind, Brock sent a picture a minute later, with a short message –

_Got a present for you_. 

“Oh, fuck me,” Bucky muttered under his breath, already packing away his pencils and his journal; he’d always had trouble saying no to Brock.

 

He walked in thirty-five minutes later to something that was more of an actual party than was Brock’s wont, and he wondered if maybe his stepbrother was finding their parents’ absence a bit liberating after all. It was still nothing compared to one of the Maximoffs full-weekend benders, but a stroll down the length of the parlor showed no sign of cigars or smoking jackets, so Bucky still considered it a win.

Brock was holding court in a high-backed chair opposite the bar, where he could survey the room and its goings-on and his usual gang of sycophants could fill in around him. Bucky ignored protocol and perched himself right on the arm of the chair, grinning flirtatiously at Rollins’s and Sitwell’s scandalized sneers.

“What’s shakin’, gents?” Bucky asked.

A proprietary hand settled on his knee, and Brock waved the other hand with its scotch glass vaguely towards the bar and the pool table. “Give us a minute, gentlemen.” They obliged without fuss. “Getting bored with that open space and ocean air already?” 

“Tony was getting manic without his usual toys on hand.”

“More manic than usual, you mean?”

“Well.”

Brock’s thumb began drawing absent circles on the side of his knee, sensitive even through the heavy fabric of his black jeans. “And your quest?”

“A bit stalled at the moment,” he admitted grudgingly. “Working on it.”

“You’ve got five weeks until fall term starts.”

Rather than repeat himself, Bucky changed the subject abruptly. “So, where is he?”

“He _was_ getting his ass whooped in pool by Barton, before there was some noise about making bets on Barton throwing darts.”

Bucky glanced down, brow quirked upwards. “Thought you and Barton were on the outs.” Brock just shrugged. “Nat here?”

“She’s the one who brought him, but she had to duck out early.”

After a quick stop for a drink of his own, Bucky found a small crowd growing around Clint and a dark-haired girl he didn’t recognize, standing back-to-back and aiming at dart boards mounted opposite one another. Having apparently given up on bullseyes, they were now simply taking orders for a spot to hit from a random person in the crowd, and seemed to be down to a sudden death competition.

Laura was standing against the doorway looking bored. “Who’s the girl?” Bucky asked, and she turned in surprise but smiled easily enough.

“No clue. Kate something.”

They watched as Kate took Clint’s three darts and made a smiley face on her board. The crowd dispersed, and Clint and Kate drifted off to one side of the room engrossed in some wildly animated conversation that quickly turned to archery mimes.

“He could compete in the Olympics, you know.”

She grinned and shook her head fondly. “He tried formal lessons once. They just bitched at him about how atrocious his form was and how he’d have to unlearn everything and start over.”

“Dumb fucks.”

“Barnes!” He spun around and eyed the promised disaster that was a drunk Sam Wilson weaving his way through the dispersing crowd towards him. “Barnes, Barnes, Barnes. James. Jimmy, my man.”

Laura raised her brows and pointedly slipped away, ignoring Bucky’s look of complete and utter betrayal. “Jesus,” he put a steadying hand on Sam’s shoulder and lifted the glass out of his grasp. “What’s _your_ poison of choice?” He eyed the clear liquid suspiciously. “Don’t fucking tell me that Nat’s got you going on straight vodka, you’re far too young to be so mean to your liver. Or…” he took a tentative sip and cocked a brow. “Just water.”

“Nah man,” Sam drew him out of the crowd and into a quiet corner, “cut myself off a while ago, gotta head home soon.”

“Yeah, your folks are kind of tight-asses, aren’t they?”

He rolled his eyes. “ _Kind of,_ my ass. They’re out late tonight though. Theatre tickets.”

“Well, it’s good to see you out in the world.”

“Yeah,” Sam’s brow furrowed, and a moment of intense concentration and confusion suggested to Bucky that maybe he was still a bit tipsy. “Your brother said the same. And he keeps shoving drinks my way, which is why -” he pulled the glass back out of Bucky’s hand and wiggled it demonstratively. “Is your brother trying to get me drunk?”

“Can’t imagine,” Bucky returned blandly, now realizing that’s _exactly_ what Brock had in mind when he’d sent him that first message. “Just wants to make sure you’re enjoying your night of freedom.”

“Huh.” His attention drifted another moment, and then snapped back to Bucky abruptly. “He said I should talk to you.”

“Did he now.”

And so Bucky found himself steering a mildly inebriated Sam Wilson to his room for some privacy, and he wasn’t shy about tossing Brock a dirty look when he caught him watching as the two of them slipped away.

And this was why he never should have told Brock shit about his conversation with Natasha.

When the heavy door closed behind Bucky, effectively cutting off any drifting noise from the get together on the next floor, Sam turned and steeled himself with a somewhat fatalistic expression and demanded, “Are you and Natasha a thing?”

“I – huh?”

“Rumlow said –” Sam paused a moment and seemed to register his surroundings, turning in a circle and whistling softly. “This is a _nice_ room, man.”

“Thanks.”

“Your brother said - ”

“ _Step_ brother.”

“Whatever, dude,” he huffed. “He thought maybe you and Natasha were together; told me after she left that he was surprised to see us together.”

_Oh, for fuck’s sake._ Bucky pinched at the bridge of his nose. “He doesn’t think that, he’s just being an asshole.” 

“Oh.” Another moment of confusion gave way to an expression not dissimilar to a kicked puppy. “Why would he do that?”

Bucky stared. “Three years at school with the guy and you’ve never noticed that’s just how he _is_?” Sam looked like he’d never really considered it before. “Anyway- Nat’s just a friend and, if you’re nervous about asking her out, don’t be, she’s into you too. That it? We good?”

“Actually…” Bucky bit back a curse with his hand on the door knob. “I wonder if… I mean, you’ve gotten around, you know what -”

“Don’t worry about being a virgin, she kinda figured you might be.”

“Hey,” Sam bristled, “I’ve got _some_ experience.” And thank God for Sam Wilson’s low alcohol tolerance and a severely impaired brain-to-mouth filter, because Bucky was 99% confident that he would never have completed that thought otherwise. “Just not with… girls.”

And goddamn if _now_ this wasn’t getting interesting. “ _Oh_?” Bucky arched a brow, walked back into the room, sat at the desk chair and indicated for Sam to take a seat on the bed. He sprawled backwards ungracefully on it instead.

Bucky’s hand twitched, and he silently cursed Brock for unknowingly setting this up, cursed Nat for divulging the connection between the Wilsons and the Rogers in the first place, and mostly cursed himself in the knowledge that he was going to take advantage of this unexpected opportunity and feel shitty about it for days.

His hand twitched again, and he succumbed to the urge to pull his phone from his pocket and snap a quick picture while Sam wasn’t paying him any attention.

“So is this like, an orientation crisis,” Bucky put his phone away and steepled his fingers under his chin, elbows resting on the arms of the chair. “Or more of a _what does Nat like in bed_ brainstorm?”

“Dude!” Sam shot upright. “I thought you said you weren’t a thing!”

“I mean, we’ve _fucked_ ,” Bucky frowned. “Obviously.” And then to wipe the scowl off Sam’s face, he added, “Not since last summer, c’mon. I mean it, we’re just good friends.”

“I think I might be regretting every decision I’ve made this evening,” Sam mused.

“You and me both, buddy, but you’re here, so – look. Don’t worry about it. She likes you, she won’t be _expecting_ anything from you on that front, and if you do fall into bed and make like rabbits, she will not be shy about telling and-or showing you precisely what gets her off. ‘Kay?”

It was hard to tell if the put-off look on Sam’s face was from Bucky’s spiel or the booze still working its way out of his system. “Uh. Okay. Thanks for the, uh… advice.”

But Bucky held up a hand as he moved to climb off the bed. “Ah – I haven’t named my fee.” The ensuing and decidedly nonplussed expression was almost comical. “You’re friends with Steve Rogers, right?”

“Uh.” He was obviously thrown by that non sequitur. “Yeah, why?”

“Someone’s been shit-talking me to him, I want you to put in a good word. Casual-like, don’t make it weird.”

“Why in the name of ever-loving fuck would I do that? And why the hell would you care?”

“I care because none of your goddamn business.”

“Aaand fuck you, too, Barnes. Good to see your brother doesn’t have the monopoly on being an asshole in this house.”

Sam pushed past him, set his glass of water on the desk with entirely too much force, and made for the door. Bucky watched him, and then asked casually when his hand was twisting the door knob, “You want to help me caption this picture of you lying in my bed for Facebook? I’d tag you in it, but you don’t have an account, do you? Say, what d’you suppose the chances are someone shows your mother eventually?”

He turned, eyes hard, and fixed Bucky with a glare. “You wouldn’t. Natasha would kill you.”

Bucky considered a moment and sighed dramatically. “You’re right; should probably email it directly to your mother.” He pulled a SHIELD directory off the shelf above his computer and started flipping through. “Is she listed in here? _Say_ ,” he snapped it shut again and looked up at Sam, eyes wide. “How do your folks feel about the whole _fooling around with other guys_ thing?”

Sam huffed out a laugh and looked down, ran a hand through his short hair. He sounded resigned and more sad than angry when he spoke. “You know, you used to be a nice kid, James.”

“Don’t act like you fucking know me, Wilson. Have we exchanged ten goddamn words before you wanted my help getting in my best friend’s pants?”

“Don’t worry, I think you’ve effectively shut down any interest I had there, believe me.” A sharp surge of guilt rose up in his throat and he opened his mouth, ready to protest, but Sam cut him off. “She hides it well but she’s gotta be bat-shit crazy to put up with your bullshit.”

 

Brock accosted him on his way out twenty minutes later, sly smile fixed firmly in place. “Saw Wilson slink out of here; him and Romanoff, huh?”

“Don’t think that one’s going to work out, actually.”

The greasy grin widened. “Why? She doesn’t want your sloppy seconds?”

Because what else did Brock expect of him, given ten minutes alone with a drunken classmate? _Of-fucking-course_.

X---X

He hadn’t thought to ask downstairs if Tony was in for the night, but it was dark and quiet when he walked back into the apartment. Granted, that didn’t mean much – Tony could be out, asleep, or simply shut away in the makeshift lab where he pulled frequent all-nighters before stumbling into school the next morning wired on energy drinks.

His phone buzzed in his pocket, and answered the question for him.

JARVIS

            [SILENT PROTOCOL ACTIVATED]

_Welcome back, Mister Barnes. How may I be of service?_

Bucky grinned and texted Tony instead.

_Did you hack my phone?_

The reply came so quickly that he must have been dictating to Jarvis.

_Just a little bit, isn’t it great?_

Maria was going to kill Tony if she started getting texts from his experimental AI interface. He informed Tony of such, and was pointedly ignored in response.

After swinging through the kitchen for a bottle of sparkling water to get the stale burn of cheap whiskey out of his throat, Bucky trudged along to the spare room he’d claimed hours earlier, thoughts of Natasha weighing heavily on his mind. An unforeseen consequence, fucking over the one person he was willing to go out of his way for these days.

“Lights, Jay,” he barked as he passed Maria’s fancy sitting room, and then whirled as an indignant voice squeaked _Hey!_ in the sudden darkness. “Whoa.” He flipped the closest lamp back on manually and stepped into the apparently empty space, convinced he was going out of his goddamn mind until a tiny hand waved absently over the back of the far sofa. 

He circled around and stared, a goofy smile creeping its way unwittingly across his face at the sight of Steve Rogers, propped against the back of the couch where he could face out the floor-to-ceiling window; his knees were drawn up to brace a large drawing pad, and a slew of pencils littered the floor around him. A couple of sketches sat abandoned off to one side.

“Couldn’t get views like this back home,” Steve offered weakly, flushing a bit under the scrutiny before turning to stare determinedly out at the world again from seventy floors up. “Thought you’d gone to bed.”

“Ran out to live up to my degenerate ways.”

Steve craned his neck around again and narrowed his eyes thoughtfully. “You’re a very self-deprecating person, James.”

Bucky shrugged. “You draw.” Steve nodded unsurely, like he was trying to follow that particular segue. “Can I see?”

Hesitating the briefest of moments, Steve handed the sketchpad over. “Just a quick sketch,” he mumbled, “it’s not…”

“It’s _amazing_ ,” Bucky breathed, drinking in the sheer detail of the scene, the way the moonlight illuminated the scene from above and the hints of distant headlights and streetlamps giving more life to a nocturnal birds-eye of a concrete jungle than he would have thought possible. “Wow, Steve, that’s… wow.”

“Okay, okay,” Steve ducked his head, “you don’t gotta lay it on so thick.”

“I’m not,” Bucky handed the book back and tried to catch his eye. “Honest. I’m just an asshole who draws, but you’re like… an _artist_.”

Steve looked back up. “You draw?” Bucky blinked. “Can I see sometime?”

“Ehh…” he dithered a moment. “Hold on.”

Steve looked taken aback as he dashed off, but he didn’t give himself time to second guess as he ducked into his room and fished his journal out of his backpack. He looped the elastic around the front half of the book and skimmed through the sketches at the back.

A jolt of guilt flashed through him as he settled on one, but he figured he deserved it well enough, and took the journal back out to the nest Steve had carved out behind the sitting room sofa.

“Oh,” Steve’s gaze drifted across the sketch of Natasha, lying on her side in bed and reading, shooting an unimpressed stare over the top of the book. The only piece of it he’d done in color was her vibrant hair, spilling across her pale neck and shoulders, the fringes tickling the pages of the book she was reading. “She’s beautiful. Girlfriend?”

“Best friend.”

“You take a picture or did she pose for you?”

“ _Pose_ might be generous, but she tolerates me from time to time.”

Steve studied the picture a minute longer before handing the book back. “She looks… I’m not sure the word. Not _dangerous_ , exactly, but, well… Siren comes to mind.”

And that might have been the most flattering thing anyone had ever said about his drawings – not that he often shared them, not these days anyway. He waved it off though, shrugged. “It’s the redhead thing, I think.”

“ _Oh_ ,” Steve pulled the journal back to look at it again. “Didn’t even realize. Colorblind,” he offered a crooked smile. “Reds and greens. I’m useless at Christmas.”

“That why you’re drawing a gray city in the dark?”

He went pink and rubbed anxiously at the back of his neck, other hand fiddling aimlessly with a pencil. “Had an art teacher a while back who kept trying to break my insecurities with the color thing.”

“Aw, and I didn’t think you had any insecurities.”

“I got a few.” He held Bucky’s eyes steadily until Bucky swallowed heavily and looked away. “Anyway – I’ve always been too literal about my work. Can’t stand the idea that I’m doing it _wrong_.”

“S’not wrong if that’s what _you_ see.”

The corner of Steve’s mouth quirked up. “That’s what he said. _In a world that values Picasso and Klimt, who cares if your greens are a bit yellow and your reds are a bit brown? That’s_ your _world_. Except my world feels wrong and dull without your siren friend’s red hair.”

“Natasha wouldn’t be dull if she was sketched in black and white,” Bucky assured him. “She’s… the first crisp fall day after a long summer surrounded by noise and people and concrete. She’s hot and she’s cold, sometimes at the same time, and so self-assured you can’t help but – she could tell me the Earth was flat, or the center of the universe, or collapsing into a black hole _tomorrow_ , and I’d believe her.”

Something softened around Steve’s eyes, he lost some of the hesitation about his own perceived shortcomings. “Might not be your girlfriend, but you sure sound in love.”

“Nah.” Bucky flopped onto his back on the hard floor and stared up at the ceiling. “I drive her crazy and she’s entirely too good for me. We just click, you know?”

Steve shrugged and laid down too, folding his hands behind his head and twisting his body around at a bit of an angle so they could better look at one another, squeezed into the tight space. “Love doesn’t have to be about romance.”

“My experience is more that romance doesn’t have to be about love.”

“You think sex and romance are interchangeable concepts?”

Bucky opened and closed his mouth a couple times, considering the other boy as he worked that one over in his mind. He didn’t think he’d yet seen Steve look so relaxed in the time of their acquaintance, rolling slightly to peer out the window while he gave Bucky time to ponder that potentially loaded question.

“I think I used to,” he offered at last.

 

 

It didn’t take long for the discomfort of lying on a hard wood floor to make itself known; Bucky solved the problem by reaching over the back of the couch, yanking the cushions off, and tossing them into the narrow space they’d occupied. Ignoring Steve’s indignant splutters, he vaulted the now-bare sofa and gave the one on the other side of the room the same treatment.

“I’m not sure Missus Stark would appreciate…”

“We’ll put ‘em back when we’re done, what do you think is going to happen?” Steve looked unconvinced, and Bucky flashed his most disarming smile. “C’mon, Stevie, don’t you trust me?”

“Not in the slightest, if’m being honest.”

“Rude.” Bucky huffed softly under his breath and then pushed past Steve, arranging the pilfered cushions into two makeshift cots side-by-side. “’Fraid I’ve got no sheets, and don’t know how to do hospital corners if I did.”

Grudging amusement was winning out on Steve’s face. “What fucking good are you then, Barnes?”

“My skills generally lie more… _between_ the sheets.”

A beat passed, and then they both dissolved into punchy laughter. “That was _terrible_ ,” Steve gasped, flopping down on the row of cushions nearer the window. “What a line. You’re a menace.” Bucky scowled and settled back down on the ground. He freed his journal from where it was lodged under a cushion and Steve stopped teasing and asked, “Can I see any more?”

“I, uh – yeah, I guess.” He wiggled around so they were lying face to face and flipped back open to the drawing of Natasha. “That’s the only one I really… took any time on...” He slid the book to Steve and watched as he thumbed through the next few pages. No full portraits, just body studies – the muscles in Clint’s arm, drawing back a bow. The raw power of Natasha’s legs in a dancer’s pose, though she’d quit ballet years ago. The concentrating quirk of Tony’s brows and his tongue poking between his lips as he worked. Pietro’s mischievous grin and dancing eyes.

The soft curves of Wanda’s leg tangled up in silken sheets.

Long fingers wrapped around a glass and bones protruding slightly from a delicate wrist.

He was so baffled to find himself actually embarrassed and blushing that he didn’t register that Steve, completely unfazed by the suggestive sketch of Wanda and what he hopefully didn’t realize was a snapshot of his own body, had stopped a moment later after leafing through several empty pages and was studying a dark drawing at the very back of the book.

He skimmed his thumb lightly over the hard lines of a terse jaw, the suggestive cruelty in hooded eyes. “Were you…? This one’s different,” Steve remarked softly. “Wild. You were passionate about it. Pressed hard and drew fast and didn’t clean it up like the others.”

Bucky pulled the book back slowly, closed it, wrapped the elastic band around to hold it shut, and tucked it out of sight. He felt raw and exposed, completely blindsided by the nerve Steve had touched, however unwittingly.

“What are you afraid of, James?”

He rolled onto his back and pressed his eyes shut, willing away thoughts of Brock’s cruel schemes and Sam’s resigned disappointment, Natasha being fed up with his antics. _What the hell am I doing?_ he wondered, suddenly floundering with the sensation of drifting in open water and unsure when he’d lost sight of land in the first place.

He gave Steve a surprisingly honest answer. “Waking up one day and realizing I’ve become someone a younger version of me would’ve hated.”

Except as he shifted to meet Steve’s shocking blue-green stare, it occurred that he might have crossed that threshold some time ago.

“Whatever happens, just don’t be a bully,” Steve murmured around a yawn. “Can’t stand bullies.”

Bucky watched his eyes drift closed and resolved to go home in the morning and call the whole ridiculous wager off.


	4. The Hitch

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Steve learns about the history between the Barnes and Stark families; Bucky runs promptly in the other direction.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> An MCU cameo in this chapter caught even me by surprise.

“James. James. James. James. Barnes. Barnes. Barnes. BARNES!”

“Jesus _Christ_ , Tony, _what?_ ”

Bucky pulled the pillow off his face, blindly flung it outwards, missed, and pulled it promptly back to its job of shielding his eyes.

“Phone call.”

He groaned and held out a hand. Tony dropped his cell into it, tittered gleefully, and skipped away. “Who are you and what do you want, you have ten seconds, go.” 

“I’m so sorry, dear.” Bucky choked on an inhale and sat up, spluttering and coughing. “I told him not to wake you if you were still in bed.”

“It’s fine, Missus Stark. Sorry for the, uh… sorry.” He fumbled for his own phone, tangled up in the sheets, squinted at the time, and forced himself upright. It wasn’t _that_ early, in normal human standards, he’d just stayed up entirely too late talking to Steve before they’d stumbled off to their respective rooms. “What, uh – what can I do for you?”

“I just got a call from the clinic and they’re having something of a staffing crisis this morning.” And _that_ woke Bucky up the rest of the way. “They could really use an extra volunteer or two to help out with phones and the front desk.”

“Oh.”

“I hate to spring this on you, just out of bed…”

“No,” he rubbed tiredly at his face, “no, that’s fine, I can –” He took mental inventory of his wardrobe and basic needs before he would be publically presentable. “I can get down there in about an hour.”

The relief was palpable in her voice. “Thank you so much, sweetie. Otherwise I’d have to make Tony go, and, well…”

“Unmitigated disaster,” he chuckled, “I remember.”

“What he lacks in tact, he makes up for in… well… he’s a good boy."

“Yes, ma’am.”

They exchanged farewells and Bucky stumbled out of the room in search of caffeine; what he found was Steve, looking unfairly awake and put together, legs swinging idly as he sat on one of the bar stools at the kitchen counter opposite Tony, who was talking a mile a minute around a mouthful of what might have once been a muffin or scone.

He was also chugging coffee and gesticulating wildly with his free hand, all signs pointing towards an all-nighter and the impending, inevitable crash. Steve just stared on in fascination, probably not understanding a word coming out of the other boy’s mouth, drinking his coffee in a much more measured fashion.

Bucky slid Tony’s phone across the counter at him and made grabby hands at the coffee pot.

“Whud’she’wun?” Tony stepped aside to allow Bucky to pour himself a mug.

“Some kinda volunteer scheduling fuckup at the clinic, I said I’d go down for the morning.”

“Oh.”

Bucky brushed the crumbs Tony sprayed across the counter into the sink. “Swallow, Tony.”

“You kinky son of a bitch.”

Bucky rolled his eyes up to the ceiling, but Steve stepped in and asked, “What clinic is this?”

“Stark Industries makes an obscene amount of profit off the American military industrial complex,” Tony explained between bites, “and my father feels better about himself by turning around and putting some of that money into helping veterans.”

“They say there’s a strong correlation between generosity and guilt,” Steve commented sagely.

Tony shrugged. “It’s just a drop in the bucket of the whole SI portfolio.” 

“But it’s a pretty big drop in a pretty big bucket, and they’ve got an extensive medical research division that’s been making some waves in the prosthetics department. Kinda interesting. Anyway,” Bucky downed his coffee and turned to refill the mug, “I need to go get dressed.”

He made it two steps back out of the kitchen before he turned around again, nearly sloshing scalding coffee over his hand as Steve asked, “Can I come?” His cheeks tinged pink. “I mean, if they could use an extra set of hands, that is.”

“Uh… well, they have to do a whole security check thing before you can volunteer…”

Tony snatched his phone off the counter. “Happy can start it,” he started texting quickly. “Forward it over and ready to sign by the time you get there. That’s a great idea. I’m going to pass out in about,” he glanced at the clock on the stove, “thirty-seven minutes, and if you get Steve out of the house I won’t have to worry about my mother’s nagging about being a shitty host.”

“Always glad to ease your conscience, Tony,” Bucky deadpanned. “Yeah, okay,” he nodded at Steve, “wheels up in fifteen.”

It wasn’t until they were climbing into the car a quarter hour later that Bucky remembered his late night vow to himself to talk with Brock today.

 

X---X 

Despite the jovial tone of the morning, Steve couldn’t get more than terse, mostly monosyllabic answers out of James for the drive to Gramercy Park, and he couldn’t deny the sense of keen disappointment after feeling like he’d made some real headway in getting the know the other boy the night prior. As they parked, he finally drummed up the courage to ask, “Would you rather I not be here?”

James shot him a sharp look and then deflated, tension draining from his shoulders as he sagged in his seat. “Sorry, it’s not…” he ran a hand over his face. “Just remembered something I need to do after this, that’s all. Not tryin’ to be a jerk, sorry.”

“It’s okay,” he climbed out into the cramped shadows of the parking garage, and trailed after James as he set off for the east exit stairwell. “I think it’s really great of you to be involved like this,” he offered, hurrying on much shorter legs to keep up. “Was a time I wanted nothing more than to be a soldier.”

“This ain’t the place to nurture that dream,” James grunted, turning a corner and stepping out onto the bright street. “This is what comes out the other side.”

The cynicism took Steve aback, and he cautiously countered, “Getting hurt doing it doesn’t mean the job wasn’t worth doing, does it?” James shrugged, pace unfaltering. “Well… anyway. Too much wrong with me to serve, as it is. Known that a while now.”

James pointed at the building caddy-corner the next intersection. Nothing about it particularly screamed that it was home to a wing of the lucrative Stark Industries brand, and James seemed to follow Steve’s thoughts. “Mister Stark was all but ready to renovate a few floors of the tower in Midtown to house the clinic, and Missus Stark got wind of it and asked if he was out of his goddamn mind, treating wounded and traumatized vets in the same place where they were developing half the military arsenal.”

“Good point.”

“She mostly took over after that; scouted out a new location, sits on the board.”

Steve looked around as they crossed the street, considering the location through that lens, and he could see why she’d picked it. Calm and quiet, as the city went, the park itself just a skip away.

They entered a cozy lobby that boasted some art Steve would’ve loved to spend a minute examining, but James made straight for the reception desk and pulled a card from his wallet. “G-M-B-M-C,” he rattled off, holding a hand out impatiently in Steve’s direction.

“Oh,” he started, fumbling for his own license.

“Steven Rogers,” James handed it over. “Should’ve been put on the list in the last half-hour.”

The woman at the desk checked them off and directed them up to the fourth floor. James took the stairs at a slightly less breakneck pace, allowing Steve to actually keep up and keep his breath enough to ask, “What’s G-M-whatever?”

It was another full flight before James answered, and that was just to say, “Don’t make this weird, okay?”

“Make _what_ -?”

“ _Bucky_.” James cringed slightly and glanced up. Steve followed his gaze to where a man with an absurdly expansive mustache was hanging over the railing of the fourth landing, watching them ascend. “Holy shit, it _is_. _Gabe_ ,” he turned and hollered through an unseen doorway, “it _is_ Bucky!” 

Steve glanced down the steps behind them just to be sure he wasn’t imagining things, and then leaned in close to James and whispered, “Uh – who the hell is Bucky?”

“The hell is on your face, Dugan?” James called up instead, and then chuckled softly as a distant voice shouted _Thank you!_

“You’re Bucky?”

They reached the fourth floor and James got wrapped up in what looked like a rib cracking hug. “’Course he’s Bucky,” Dugan scowled. “Falsworth is James, Morita’s got Jim locked down, and you spend enough nights in the barracks listening to Georgie go on and on and _on_ about _Bucky this_ and _Bucky that_ , sorry kid, you’re stuck with it.” 

“I,” James huffed with affected snobbery, “am a grown-ass man, thank you.”

Dugan just laughed uproariously. “Hey, kid,” he slapped Steve so hard on the back he had to take a minute to consider reaching for his inhaler while he caught his breath, “come on in and we’ll get you sorted out with a volunteer pass. You don’t seem to be a felon, or moonlighting as a vigilante.”

“Far’s you know.”

Dugan winked and slung his arm around James’s shoulders, already talking a mile a minute and leaving Steve behind to follow the pair through a set of double doors across the hallway.

He eyed the lettering above the entrance and stopped in his tracks though, brain stuttering to a halt as he read the words –

_George M Barnes Memorial Clinic_  

“Well,” he muttered, looking down at James’s retreating back, “Okay. Fuck.”

 

X---X

“Don’t see you around so much these days,” Dugan prompted as he watched Bucky settle in at the reception desk after Gabe Jones whisked Steve away to the office across the hall to finish his paperwork. “Had to make sure your pass hadn’t expired when Maria called.”

Bucky took the opportunity to answer a phone call while he mulled over an appropriate response to that, and Dugan leaned over to add in a whisper, “Winnie’s been worried about you.”

He forwarded the caller to the scheduling department and glared. “Beat around the bush much?”

“Hey,” Dugan shrugged, “I don’t know when I’ll next see you once you slip out those doors again.” He paused. “It’s been a couple years now, but is it the remarrying thing?”

“Jesus Christ, did you call my mother the second you got off the phone with Missus Stark and plan a therapy ambush?”

Dugan’s mustachioed face lost a good deal of its good humor and his brows furrowed deeply. “Buck, she still comes every Wednesday, you know.”

He… hadn’t known, actually. Or just hadn’t really thought about it since he’d stopped coming along and, eventually, she’d stopped asking him to.

Dugan clapped him warmly on the shoulder. “Gotta run, kid. Meeting’s about to start. Catch you later, yeah?” 

Bucky mumbled something indistinct under his breath and then seized promptly upon the distraction of answering another phone call.

 

X---X

“How do you know Bucky?”

_I don’t think I do_ , Steve mused as he stared at a framed newspaper clipping mounted on the wall behind the desk. The caption placed it as the opening of the clinic, five years earlier, and featured a graciously smiling Maria Stark shaking the hand of a younger woman who was poised, but for the raw emotion shining in her eyes. _Winifred Barnes_ , the caption read. Widow of clinic-namesake, George Barnes. Pictured with their son, James _._

Thirteen-year-old James was awkward and gangly, but he had an open and mischievous face that was looking at a remarkably unchanged Tony, standing on Maria’s other side, instead of the camera. Tony just looked bored with the proceedings, and Steve couldn’t help but wonder how many such events he’d been dragged to over the course of his life to date.

“We’ll be at school together this year,” Steve answered at last, tearing his attention away to meet Gabe Jones’s sympathetic smile and tight eyes.

Gabe’s gaze drifted to the picture Steve had been studying. “He doesn’t like to talk about it so much, these days.” 

“Yeah, I…” _Probably could have used the heads-up_ , “…was picking up on that.”

“Which isn’t to say that he _shouldn’t_ talk about it, but… lot of upheaval in his life these past couple years. And it’s just that age – I was a surly teenager once, too. When he’s ready to let go, there’s a lot of us waiting to catch him again.”

There were a number of ways he might have described James Barnes in the week of their acquaintance – cocky, confident, sometimes brash, a touch of flamboyant – but _surly_ hadn’t really factored into the picture. At least not until the drive here. And as he’d mentioned the night before – James did tend to fall back on some remarkably self-deprecating attitudes. Preemptive defensiveness or low self-esteem, maybe, but it was hard to say which. 

“All set,” Gabe reached over to fasten a volunteer pass to the collar of his polo, and then glanced out the door and across the hall. “Think Bucky’s got reception all covered – wanna do something really fun and rewarding, like sort mail?”

 

X---X

 

The tension was thick on the drive back to the Starks’ apartment three hours later, and Bucky made a conscious effort to stop gripping the steering wheel so tight; his knuckles thanked him. Given that success, he chanced an ice breaker and asked, “You hungry?”

“I never knew my dad,” Steve blurted. “He died before I was born.”

Bucky groaned and smacked his head backwards against the padded headrest.

“It’s just… I know people don’t like to ask. Sensitive subject, and all. But sometimes, it’s nice to have an opening to… to talk about it.”

“Do I look like I want to talk about it?”

“No,” Steve answered honestly, “but you look like you kinda need to.”

“Okay, well,” he bit, running his hands over his face while they were stopped at a light. “Fuck off.”

“How old were you?” he persisted.

“Steve…”

“James…”

“You remember our first meeting?” Bucky snapped, trying desperately to focus on keeping his cool while driving. “Me diving headfirst into a touchy subject and you having absolutely _no_ chill?”

“Yeah, I just - ”

“Maybe we should go ahead and revisit that conversation, finally.”

“-seems like you’re _hurting_ , and I-”

“Are you a virgin, Steve?”

The grinding of Steve’s teeth was practically audible in the cramped confines of the car. “Now you’re just trying to piss me off.”

“No, c’mon, I wanna know.”

“Is this how it works? You deflect and use sex as a crutch to avoid dealing with any _real_ emotions?”

“Thought you weren’t in the business of judging someone for liking sex.”

“ _Do_ you even?” Bucky glanced over sharply. “Or is it just an act to hide behind and a way to get out of your own fucked up head?”

A longer silence weighed heavily between them. A sidelong look at Steve showed he was a bit worked up, a flush rising in his cheeks. Bucky waited a moment to see if he would expound upon that theory, or backtrack and apologize. He did neither, and Bucky huffed, “Well, tell me how you really feel.”

Steve accepted that rhetorical challenge doggedly. “I think you’re awful good at putting on a new face to appeal to whoever you’re talking to. Which is probably how you talk so many people into bed. But even if you’re not working any angle I can see, you’re one person with the Starks and someone else with the guys at the clinic, and you don’t think I can tell that you put on a hell of a lot more Brooklyn when it’s just us?”

Bucky bypassed the entrance to the garage underneath the Starks’ apartment building and pulled up instead to the front entrance. “If you’re done with that riveting psychoanalytical assessment,” he gestured towards the doors.

“Oh.” Steve stared a moment. “What – you’re not coming?”

“Nah. You got me, Stevie – just a fucked up Brooklyn boy who doesn’t know where he is or where he’s going or how he got here. And if it’s all the same to you – you know what?” He paused and thought. “No. Fuck you. I don’t owe you anything. Just fucking go, alright? Happy’ll let you up.”

Miracle of miracles, Steve obeyed without further objection, and slouched through the ornate entrance with a stiff nod at the doorman. 

“ _Fuck_ ,” Bucky swore for no ears but his own, and sped off.

X---X 

He’s self-aware enough to realize it wouldn’t sting so goddamn much if it weren’t so goddamn true.

 

X---X 

It was probably for the best that Brock didn’t seem to be home when Bucky came storming in to change, but he was a ready distraction one way or another, and his absence left Bucky staring at the contacts list in his phone, trying to decide who might be available on a Saturday afternoon. Nat was probably working if she hadn’t stayed out late the night before, and he still had a bad taste in his mouth over the incident with Sam.

In all honesty though, he needed more than a distraction, he needed honest-to-god _distance_ , and he found himself scanning down to the _other_ Wilson listed in his phone.

_You and Vanessa on again or off again rn?_

The reply came back while he was changing out of the slacks and button up he’d worn to the clinic, and he bit back a soft curse as he read it.

_On_

His brow quirked in interest a moment later though when his phone chimed again. 

_But V says she’ll try anything once._

X---X

 

“I come prepared.” 

Bucky held up a box of condoms and pushed past Wade without any further ceremony. Which resulted in running smack into Vanessa, looking like she’d just rolled out of bed in a long shirt and quite possibly nothing underneath.

“Mm,” she plucked the box from his hands, “ribbed for my pleasure.”

“And mine, let’s hope.”

“Hate to knock you up,” Wade clapped him on the shoulder and drew him into the corner of the studio apartment that passed as a living space, pushing him down onto the ragged old couch and sprawling unabashedly across his lap.

Vanessa sat primly on the other side of the couch, hands wrapped around a steaming mug, watching them bemusedly. “That’s cute.”

Wade leaned in and smacked a sloppy kiss on Bucky’s cheek. “Barnes was always very obliging about keeping me warm at night during those hard-up times when you realized you’re too good for me.”

She looked skeptical and turned to Bucky. “You really think his dick’s worth coming back across the bridge for?”

Wade pouted; Bucky shrugged. “S’a nostalgia thing. Sometimes, you just gotta shrug off the restraints of high society.”

“Damn,” Wade muttered, “guess I’ll put the handcuffs away.”

“Well, let’s not get ahead of ourselves.” He paused and looked between them, trying to gauge if they were actually interested in going through with this – in his experience though, Wade and Vanessa were the two people least inclined to pay any mind to the usual social mores and expectations. “Hafta admit, I’ve never actually done the threesome thing before.”

“It’s only awkward if you make it awkward,” Vanessa leaned in, shoved Wade’s leg out of the way, and trailed manicured nails up Bucky’s thigh, smiling slyly. “So, James – you’re the guest, what’ve you got in mind?”

The hesitation disappeared quickly. “Was thinking Wade and I could make you forget your own name, and then you could watch him pound me into next week.” 

Wade’s hand shot into the air and he announced, “I’m in.”

 

X---X 

The thing about Wade and Vanessa – and maybe it was that they’d known him longer, or that they were a couple years older and wiser in their own way – but they didn’t ask questions. Granted _this_ particular scenario was a new one, but Vanessa took to it about as readily as any time she’d walked in on Bucky sleeping off a bender on Wade’s decrepit couch.

Which meant that, instead of water, advil, and coffee to get him through a brutal hangover, today she took charge in a mission that was exactly as Steve had called it – forcing Bucky out of his own head. She wore him out with constant demands of _harder_ and _faster_ , gave Wade the same treatment while Bucky caught his breath, and then the two of them brought him off again, her clever fingers pressed in his ass, stroking and stretching, while Wade worked him over with his wicked mouth.

By the time she let Wade flip him around and fuck him, he was a nearly incoherent, babbling mess, aching and oversensitive in the best way, and he more or less lost track of his bearings completely around the time Vanessa started scratching her nails lightly across his back.

 

He regained some sense of focus at the feeling of Vanessa laughing quietly beneath him, his head resting in her lap and her hands brushing sweaty hair off his forehead. “Oh, you’re _fun_ , baby; can see why he likes you.” _He_ , being Wade, sprawled unceremoniously on his stomach, bare ass on display for all.

“Mm,” Bucky groaned, eloquent as ever.

 

X---X

They wasted away the rest of the afternoon lounging about, cleaning up and moving back to the sofa once the sweaty, sticky mess of the bed became too much to handle. Wade put on a baseball game none of them actually watched, they filled Bucky in on life in Brooklyn without him, and enjoyed Bucky’s sordid tales of life on the Upper East Side.

At least here, nobody punched him in the arm over his misadventures with the Maximoff twins.

Shortly after five, Vanessa shimmied into a short, tight dress and dragged them out into the light of day for a stop at a taco truck down the street before she had to work. They ate while they walked the few blocks to the club where she bartended, Bucky marveling at her ability to slather her food in sauce, eat on the move, and still maintain the integrity of her clothes.

“I’m very jealous of your highly-graceful, taco-loving sex goddess,” he sighed wistfully to Wade after they waved her off.

“Yeah yeah, she thinks you’re adorable too. Fuck,” he turned and scowled, “who am I supposed to call after she leaves me for you?”

“Nah, you two are made for each other, in that sort of… belligerent _fuck-the-world_ kinky way.”

Wade waggled his eyebrows. “Wanna go again? Never did bust out the handcuffs.”

The suggestion _did_ give him the briefest of pauses, but he laughed and shook his head. “Should probably stop while I’m ahead. Might go explore the old ‘hood a bit, while I’m here.”

“Alright, kid – take care, huh? Don’t be a stranger. Even if it’s not for kinky sex, we still like you as a person. Sometimes.”

“Aw, Wade.”

 

X---X

Steve wasn’t there when Bucky finally found his way back to the Starks’ place just before ten. There was no noise from Tony’s end of the apartment, and Bucky suspected he was still sleeping off last night’s science session and would wake up just in time to get started on tonight’s.

He tossed the couch cushions on the floor by the window, retrieved his journal from the guest room, and wrote about his father for the first time in years. 

 

 

That’s how Steve found him half an hour later, hunched over, head down, scribbling away; he only registered the other boy’s presence when he moved across his light and made the reflections in the window shift and flicker.

He closed the book and put it aside, and tried to wipe surreptitiously at his face. “Hey.”

“Hey,” Steve echoed quietly. “I, uh…”

“I don’t know how my dad died,” Bucky cut him off quietly, staring out the window for fear that turning to face Steve and his big, earnest eyes would make him lose his nerve. “I mean – I know he died… _in the line of duty_ , or whatever trite phrase is supposed to be honorable and all-encompassing. I know he died in Afghanistan. I know… I know he died saving Howard’s life, but I don’t know what that actually _means_.” He huffed a humorless laugh and finally craned his neck around to add drily, “It’s classified.”

Steve stared, owlishly wide-eyed, and then jerked out of his surprised reverie and came to settle on the ground next to Bucky, much as they had the night prior.

“I don’t think I really understood that, for a while,” he admitted. “I was ten when it… I don’t know, maybe my mom knows more, but she’s not supposed to. Even when they were working out of the tower in Midtown – that’s how we ended up in New York,” he explained. “Dad, Gabe and Dugan who you met today, couple other fellas – they got this special assignment, a team attached to Stark Industries. Not regular army, they weren’t even all American. And it was a pretty hush-hush job, but dad loved it, and mom and Maria got to be good friends, and Tony and I… tolerated each other,” he laughed. “But afterwards…

“There was a big shakeup with SI; congressional inquiries into their military contracts. All… _somehow_ related to whatever happened the day my dad died. It dragged on for the better part of a couple years, and ended rather ignominiously for some of the congressmen calling for Howard’s head, I guess. But in those couple years that he had to put the brakes on the weapons development side of Stark Industries, he was quietly putting together a team to kick off the medical research division and that’s how the clinic came to be.”

Steve mulled that over quietly for a long minute, sitting with his knees drawn up into his chest, cheek resting on his folded arms upon his legs, looking sideways at Bucky’s profile. “I think,” he offered at last, cautious, “that it would be hard getting a sense of… real closure… with so much mystery and, well… _politics_ around it.”

He nodded slowly. “As a kid, everything was more… black and white. Coping. And then my mother finally agreed to let the Starks pay my way through school with Tony, once I reached high school, and _that_ sort of dragged things back up. The inevitable questions. I mean, what kind of _family friend_ shells out a couple hundred grand for someone else’s kid to go to high school? They aren’t really my godparents; hell, we didn’t move here ‘til I was seven and _God_ don’t much factor into the equation. But it just got easier to… to put it in terms that other people could make sense of.”

“Either way, seems like they been lookin’ out for you.” Bucky nodded slowly, staring down at the floor. “Do you resent your mom getting remarried?”

He looked up sharply. “Do _you_?”

“Sure,” Steve answered readily, open and honest, “sometimes. And I know it’s not rational, not fair… but we’ve been on our own so long, all the other’s got, I think it’s a natural impulse. And I didn’t even _know_ my dad.”

“What happened to him?” Bucky asked softly, ashamed at how quick he’d been to blow Steve off earlier when he brought it up.

“I’m a medical disaster,” Steve pointed out, tone wry, “Got it from somewhere. He had a bad heart; mine wasn’t much better, really, but they knew I was at risk and medicine had advanced enough to do something about it. Mostly I just gotta manage the asthma, these days.”

“I’m sorry, that you never got to know ‘im. And… I’m sorry, for earlier. Blowin’ up like that.”

Steve waved him off. “Don’t be. I shouldn’t’a pushed you.” He hesitated a moment. “James? Can I ask a favor?”

“Sure.”

He blurted out in a rush, like he was afraid of losing his nerve, “Can I draw you?”

Bucky cocked a brow. “What, _now_?" 

Steve shrugged, cheeks pink. “Feel like it’s the first time since we met that I’m seein’ the real you.”

 

X---X

 

Tony came stumbling out an hour later, mumbling something along the lines of, “Rally, team! The spear’s been activated and the alien army will soon come charging through the portal from outer space!”

“Tony?” Steve murmured absently, continuing to work at his sketchpad until Tony’s form flopped over the edge of the sofa, blocking his light, staring down bemusedly at the two of them crammed between the couch back and the window.

“Hm?”

“Go back to sleep.”

He sketched a sardonic salute. “Aye aye, cap’n.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In chapter 2, Bucky told Steve he was 'born and raised' in Brooklyn. If anyone caught that, continuity error on my end I'll fix later, I hadn't thought through the family background thoroughly enough with the military consideration. I suppose one or both parents could still be from Brooklyn, but Bucky lived a more nomadic army-brat life until the age of 7, per his discussion with Steve. In any event, he still spent the formative years (thus far) of his life there.

**Author's Note:**

> So I've had this premise bouncing around in my head for a while. I assume it's been done before, probably more than once, but I don't want to search yet, lest I read someone else's ideas and promptly hate my own. I bounced back and forth several times on the casting of 'Sebastian' - I originally thought Tony, but couldn't find a 'Kathryn' counterpart who really worked for me. But I found a different use for the Stark family that I think will work better.  
> I won't promise an update schedule, but the goal is to be done by Halloween because Reasons. Kinda thinking it'll move along much faster than that though.


End file.
